Who was Cesar Chavez? Essay and photographs restore this man to his place in American history.

Chavez has become a hero, an icon, so it’s difficult for people, especially young people, to understand him simply as a man. Esteemed Latin American scholar and writer Ilan Stavans, supported by 40-plus photographs from archival collections at the Cesar Chavez Foundation, restores this man’s humanity so that readers can understand his struggles as a labor organizer and civil rights activist for farm workers.

The book discusses his growing up and his family; his comadre Dolores Huerta, who stood with him from the beginning; his relationship with Dr. King and other activists in the broader struggles for civil rights for all peoples of color; and his insistence on being an activist for the rights of farm workers when so much media attention was given to the civil rights activists in the cities.

Ilan Stavans is a nationally respected Jewish-Latino writer and scholar. His story “Morirse está en hebreo” was made into the award-winning movie My Mexican Shivah produced by John Sayles. His books include Cesar Chavez: An Organizer’s Tale (Penguin, 2008), Dictionary Days (Graywolf), The Disappearance (TriQuarterly) and Resurrecting Hebrew (Random House). Stavans has received numerous awards, among them a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Jewish Book Award, the Latino Book Award and Chile’s Presidential Medal. He is a Professor in Latin American Culture at Amherst College.

MALI UNDER THE NIGHT SKY

A Lao Story of Homeby Youme Landowneillustrated by Youme LandownePublication Date: July 2010

How to begin again? Fleeing war, a child finds strength in memories of home and family.

Youme tells the true story of artist Mali Jai Dee, whose family was forced by civil war to flee Laos when she was five. Mali’s story reveals the strength of family and culture to carry a child through unthinkable hardship.

Mali Under the Night Sky is the true story of Laotian-American artist Malichansouk Kouanchao, whose family was forced by civil war to flee Laos when she was five. Before the war began, Mali lived an idyllic life in a community where she felt safe and was much loved. She loved to sit in front of her house and ask everyone who passed by, “Where are you going?” She herself went everywhere too—climbing on the flowering trees, catching tiny fish in a rice field, looking for pale bamboo shoots in the dark forest. She loved the time she spent with her family, napping in the hot afternoons, making feasts and coming together on special days to celebrate. But the coming war caused her family to flee to another country and a life that was less than ideal. What did she carry with her? She carried her memories. And they in turn carried her across the world, sharing where she is from and all that she loves with the people she meets.

Youme Landowne is an energetic and joyful painter, book artist and activist who thrives in the context of public art. Youme has lived in and learned from the U.S., Kenya, Japan, Laos, Haiti and Cuba. In all of these places, she has worked with communities and individuals to make art that honors personal and cultural wisdom, creating community murals, illustrating tiny books, and teaching poetry in the schools.

"Nothing happens all the time in the Sierra del Pinacate. This region of extinct volcanoes, lava flows, and sand dunes, covering more than 600 square miles just beyond the Arizona border in Sonora, Mexico, supports little life and less industry. Through history hunters, smugglers, and missionaries have walked the Pinacate floor; writers, artists, and soothsayers have sung its praises. Traces of Indian life from the first millennium have been found just beneath its surface. Astronauts destined for lunar voyages have trained in its craters. Earth must have looked like the Pinacate before man evolved, and I imagine Earth will again resemble this haunting and seemingly infinite land when no one remains to appreciate it."

Who killed that saguaro outside Phoenix?What is the sound of one billboard falling?Cochise who?

Tom Miller's Southwest is a vortex of cockfights and cantinas, of black-velvet paintings and tacky bolo ties, of eco-militants, border-crossers, and eccentric characters whose outlook is as spare and elemental as the desert that surrounds them. This is Miller's turf. With wit and insight, he reveals how the clich's of romanticism and capitalism have run amuck in his homeland. When a saguaro cactus outside Phoenix kills its own assassin, it becomes clear that no other guide to the southwest manifests such a clear moral vision while reveling in the joy of this magnificent land and its people. Originally published by National Geographic as Jack Ruby's Kitchen Sink, it received the Gold Award for Best Travel Book in 2000 given by the Society of American Travel Writers.

Tom Miller has been writing about the American Southwest and Latin America for more than three decades. His ten books include The Panama Hat Trail which follows the making and marketing of one Panama hat and Trading with the Enemy which Lonely Planet says 'may be the best travel book about Cuba ever written.' Miller began his journalism career in the underground press of the late 60s and early '70s, and has written articles for the New York Times, Washington Post, The New Yorker, Smithsonian, Natural History, and Rolling Stone. He lives in Tucson, Arizona with his wife, Regla Albarr'n.